“First You Must Master Pain”: The Nature and Purpose of Apprenticeship

Abstract

The goal of this study was to distill from a large body of literature on children learning crafts, such as pottery and weaving, the characteristics of apprenticeship as a distinct phenomenon. Currently, apprenticeship is considered indistinguishable from other, more informal, means of skill transmission. From the literature survey, 11 attributes were identified as belonging to the archetypal apprenticeship. The analysis then advances to consider the genesis or raison d'être for the apprenticeship. The argument is advanced that the apprenticeship is designed to simultaneously train novices in specific craft or trade skills while socializing them to join the social and cultural elite represented by master craftsmen. The article concludes by considering the role of apprenticeship in the evolution of schooling.

Vi. Girls' and Boys' Labor and Household Chores in Low‐ and Middle‐income Countries

“…Child apprentices may learn critical skills that will allow them to make enough money to support their families or pay for school (Lancy, 2012a). Children who work alongside their same-sex parents may learn important gender roles, rules for appropriate gendered behavior, and solidify their identities as contributing members of their communities (Lancy 2012b).…”

Teaching: Natural or Cultural?

“…Even in formal apprenticeship, one isn't likely to see much teaching-by anyone's definition (Lancy, 2012). In fact there are probably more descriptions in the ethnographic record of experts 9 One piece of contrafactual evidence for this statement is the frequency with which ethnographers complain about their informants' unwillingness to assist them in learning the culture-subsistence skills in particular.…”

How Do Children Become Workers? Making Sense of Conflicting Accounts of Cultural Transmission in Anthropology and Psychology

“…Others who have studied craft‐skill acquisition see a more varied and complex picture of the process and have pointed to methodological problems in studying children's learning (Lancy ). In reviewing a number of studies which appear to provide evidence for the role of teaching in craft production, Gosselain, for instance, suggests that:

Parent‐to‐offspring accounts of transmission could be partially fictional, a research artifact due perhaps to an over‐reliance on interviews during fieldwork, some preconceptions about craft learning in informal contexts, and the emphasis put by the artisans themselves on “tradition” and “heritage,” especially when confronted by foreigners.

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